All Activity

a long time ago i shelled out some good money ($45) for a Comet (i don't remember the model) HT dual band antenna. I never was able to ascertain the difference between that and the standard stock antenna. I gave up spending money on HT antennas and just use what came with the radio.. And honestly, considering they are HT's never been dissatisfied .

No one asked about that. He just came in here with the advice. And I want all people to follow all regulations so it's a nicer set of airwaves so that's not to dispute. I just found it odd that he decided to blurt that out.

I know,, Just saying, who many of us have a 5RM and refer to them as a UV5.. I do cause i'm a lazy 'ole fart

1. I don't understand why mag mounts are even being discussed. Pretty sure that was brought up as a joke lol Yeah, they're not a good fit for aircraft for obvious reasons. There's not usually a lot of steel in an airplane, outside of the engine mount. 2. There are air-to-air dedicated frequencies on the air-band. However: Not all air band radios, especially in older planes, allow dual watch for monitoring the Unicom or Controller frquency for your airspace, and also allow you to talk to your buddy in the plane next to you. And air band radios are expansive as hell. If you need an inexpensive solution to be able to talk to your buddy, adding a GMRS or FRS radio seems like a good option vs spending $$$ for another air-band radio. Hell, a lot of older and light sport aircraft aren't even required to have a radio installed, depending on the air space they fly in. If you fall into that category, are you going to spend $$$ for a 'real' air band radio for your plane that doesn't even have an electrical system? Or throw your GMRS handheld and a headset in your pack?

my first guess, they're using HT's . And my second guess, based on where i think they were flying, 25 miles from my location..

How many of those GMRS listeners are gong to record and log your flight path. My point is, the FAA records and retains and the less of any of that bread crumb the less headaches one might endure sometime down the road. The lesser of two evils is what im pointing out

Let the mission dictate the technology.....ISM band radios can be used in emergencies. Motorola series ISM radios are often used in build up areas, cities with lots of concrete and steel. Motorola even marketed these within many cities for emergency response teams (my employer is one that was pitched the DTR410/550/650 series radios) for use in emergency response efforts. I am in an area where UHF has over-saturated the radio spectrum, and 700/800/900 (920-928 MHz) MHz radios were touted as the next best thing. That being said, as mentioned above, the Motorola DTR series (and newer ISM versions that came out later) are limited in their power output. Range is then limited to 1-1.5 miles at best. The radios are expensive, and not rated as intrinsically safe for use in hazardous areas. When the original DTR series came out, I worked in the Oil & Gas Industry, for a company that had a fleet of steel ships (to clean up oil spills). The DTR series radios worked great aboard the vessels, as their signal could weave around the steel structure and you could communicate around the vessel, clearly. We tried the eXRS (eXtreme Radio Service) TriSquare radios before (they were trash), and settled on the Motorola DTR410 and DTR550's. I also put some school campus crews on the DTR series radios, assuring them that they were relatively secure (they had people listening to older UHF CP200 radios for children getting hurt on the playground.....people were listening in, and their license expired). ISM band does not require a license, the Motorola radios are built well (and cost a lot due to their build quality), and many vessels and teams use them here in the Pacific Northwest. However, many are in their default configuration.....no custom TalkGroups, or security settings. I keep one at my work desk to monitor traffic of vessels on a local river. Barges and tugs often can be heard, thinking their transmissions are "secure"....but they have default programming, I just have to turn it to the right "channel". For short range and clear radio comms on ships, buildings, and small campuses, they will work well. But, they are not very popular with the proliferation of VHF MURS and UHF FRS/GMRS radios. For emergencies, use whatever you can, or already have.

And it's one of @rdunajewski's rules for this site (the belittling part); he just needs to have some form of punishment for the violators. [I hard ignore all the regulars now, but your post deserved a comment.] Having members endorse breaking the rules is not a good reflection on his site. And I do not give a damn what the responses will be.

If you choose not to comply with regulations that’s your choice, but it’s wrong to belittle someone else who does a good job of explaining the regulations to someone who might not understand them.

Well that's how the regulations work. Myself if a family member, non resident, wants to use GMRS I would "suggest" they get their own license. Legally they could use mine, but if they had their own any issue with the FCC would be their problem not mine.

Nanny state alert.

You can listen to the air band with a UV-5R but it won't sound very good since the radio doesn't have an AM receiver. And FM transmitters won't transmit on AM. Get a scanner if you really want to listen to air band frequencies. The stall speed for planes is around 100-115 MPH. Smaller/lighter planes have a lower stall speed compared to commercial jets. I wonder what speeds a magnet mount will hold up to. They hold fine up to 80 MPH on most vehicles. Plus the fact that most aircraft bodies are made from aluminum or other light weight materials so a magnet mount won't work.

You will not hear the helicopters. 122.750 MHz is designated for fixed wing aircraft, that means airplanes that have stationary wing(s). If a helicopter (rotary wing) meaning having a wing that rotates and spins around needs to communicate with an airplane then you may hear a helicopter. Aeronautical freqs are amplitude modulation freqs., so I doubt that your Barfwanger Pandaland radio will emit Amplitude Modulation since they are frequency modulation radio devices.

No need to update firmware for your uses. You can if you want but not likely to change anything for you that is important. Just a note... since you say you are new to GMRS and Radio... Unless the other coaches are your family relatives, each one of you legally should get your own individual GMRS licenses. If they are family you can share, if not each person is licensed, not the radios. Another alternative, if the others use FRS radios (which use the same frequencies/channels as GMRS) but are lower power), they would not have to be licensed (FRS is a no license required service). You would be able to use your GMRS radio to communicate with FRS radios, and your family could use your GMRS radios with your callsign. Besides this, if you are only communicating from one side of the athletic field to the other, you probably don't need anything more powerful than FRS.

Uh... if you are transmitting on GMRS at the altitudes that planes fly... I would say you are not going to get a "somewhat private conversation"... every GMRS user 100 miles around is going to hear you.

I just wonder how well that cheap magmount antenna sticks to the airplane.

But that's not what he said he has.

He might have the M model.

Go ahead and tune your UV-5R to 122.750 and tell us how that works out.

So if I tune my UV-5R to 122.750 and there are helos nearby talking to each other on this frequency, I should be able to hear them? And theoretically speaking, could I talk to them? I wouldn't do this but I'm trying to understand if that's possible?

I once lost (bricked) a radio during firmware update. After 5 minutes into the update and not seeing any response on the software side, I actually thought windows locked up and did a ctrl- alt-del to shut down the program. The radio then started flashing astraks. Got. In touch with Atlantic, they confirmed I bricked the radio. I got lucky, they sent me a new replacement on warranty repair. I’,ve never done a firmware update since,

The only one to stay away from is 240625, that had some detrimental effects on the radio. I can't remember what but I remember removing it after I put it in.

Most of my radios have GMRS_250110 This one added the antenna meter that shows strength instead of just showing full bars on all signals. For some reason they removed it.

That's because as I've learned the radio is looking for a perfect 50 ohm load from the antenna and since the dummy load gives the radio the 50 ohms it's looking for the SWR is perfect. The load the radio "sees" from a given antenna can vary depending on frequency, hence the need to tune the antenna for a given frequency. I really want to pick up a NanoVNA to run SWR scans on my antenna so I can see what each is tuned for.